Which is Better Tangerine or PC Financial: When Will I Get My Bonus Interest from PC Financial?

Both Tangerine and PC Financial had a special interest promotion where they offered higher interest for new deposits made in September 2014. It’s now October and the first bonus interest payment is in for Tangerine. But I don’t see anything extra in our PC Financial account: when do they pay the bonus interest?

PC Financial Begrudges Paying Bonus Interest

Unlike Tangerine which pays bonus interest at the end of each month of a promotion, PC Financial only pays it once at the end of the promotional period.

Their terms and conditions state that interest will be calculated daily but only paid after the entire promotional time period is over. So the bonus interest payment will be deposited sometime between December 15, 2014 and December 31, 2014. (Don’t be surprised if it doesn’t appear till January 2015 but is back dated to December.)

The interest will be deposited in your savings account if you have one in good standing, or, if not, into your chequing account.

So be patient. It’s coming but not for a long-ish while.

Tangerine Pays Bonus Interest Monthly

As mentioned above, for the past few promotions anyway, Tangerine has paid any promotional bonus interest each month. It shows up as a separate line item for the account. First, they report the regular interest. Then they report any bonus interest.

UPDATE: In 2017, at Tangerine the regular interest for, say, January, would be posted on January 31 and the bonus interest would be posted on February 1. I’m not quite sure why there is a one day delay!

From what I can determine from the original offers’ terms and conditions, neither bank is paying compound interest. So even though you can get and spend your bonus interest more quickly using Tangerine, it does not appear that you will earn more interest than at PC Financial. (In fact, you will earn slightly less as the promotional interest rate at Tangerine was quoted as 3% and at PCF was quoted as 3.1%.)

Well, there’s one possible quirk.

Say you deposited $1000 extra new dollars in Tangerine on September 30. Assuming you don’t touch your account from then until November 1, on November 1, you will receive a bonus interest payment. Because I don’t want to do the math carefully, let’s just estimate it is $1.44.

Now, I suppose, you could take $1.44 out of your $1000 in savings on November 2 and you would still continue to receive the same bonus interest because your total amount in your savings account would still be the $1000 required.

In the PCF account, if you took out the $1.44, you would only be earning promotional interest on $ 1000-$ 1.44 = $ 998.56 for the rest of the year because it won’t pay you the $1.44 until the end of the promotion.

Still, this is just a small quirk. It’s not really got anything to do with compounding interest.

Join In
Do you keep an eye on your finances to make sure you get paid promotional interest, receive mail-in rebates and get your reward points or dollars? Have you ever found a company did not pay out what they promised? Please share your experiences with a comment.

Yes, we bank with Tangerine.ca among other places. If you open your first account ever with Tangerine (or ING Direct) using our Orange Key below, and deposit $100 before August 31, 2017, you and we will both get a cash bonus of $50 each. (Yes, they did extend the promotion for another few months!) All you have to do is enter the Orange Key 46470587S1 when you are opening your Account, and you’re set to go.

Just copy our Orange Key, then click on this Tangerine link to see the details and apply for an account. (Note: it only applies to people with no existing or previous accounts with Tangerine or ING Direct.)